Jeffs trial ready for opening arguments -- ranch evidence to stay

Stage set for opening statements in trial today

Photos by Patrick Dove/Standard-Times
Deric Walpole (center), lead defense attorney for Warren Jeffs, leaves the Tom Green County Courthouse Wednesday after a suppression hearing. Walpole again submitted a motion for continuance, which was again denied by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther.

Patrick Dove

Warren Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is placed in a Tom Green County Sheriff's Department car after a suppression hearing Wednesday afternoon in San Angelo. Jeffs is charged with two counts of sexual assault of a child and could face up to 119 years if convicted.

Patrick Dove

Proceedings are blazing by in the trial of Warren Jeffs, with 51st District Judge Barbara Walther ruling Wednesday against an evidence challenge from the defense and telling attorneys to be ready for opening statements today.

Jeffs' attorneys sought to prevent the evidence obtained in the April 2008 raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Yearning for Zion Ranch from being admitted in the trial.

Jeffs faces two counts of sexual assault of a child, much of the prosecution's case being based on trailer loads of documents, electronic files and other material seized in the raid.

"We would like to call witnesses," said Robert Udashen, a Dallas attorney retained by Jeffs to argue the motion to suppress evidence. His brother Gary Udashen also is representing Jeffs in that regard.

Walther didn't allow the attorneys to bring in witnesses for Wednesday's hearing, although a Nevada state trooper and an FBI agent may come at 9 a.m. today to testify about whether the evidence from the car stop that resulted in Jeffs' arrested can be admitted.

Attorneys submitted massive amounts of paperwork from previous hearings on evidence suppression. Walther has already ruled in previous hearings, one of which lasted several days, that the search warrants she signed were valid and the evidence is admissible.

Udashen argued that there were new arguments to be made about omissions to the search warrants: that the number from the hoax call — the one from a woman claiming sexual abuse at the YFZ Ranch — that led to the raid was a blocked number, that no hospital records were checked to corroborate a story from the caller, and that the caller didn't immediately give the first name of the alleged abuser.

"Those facts were recklessly admitted to mislead the court," Udashen said. "They did not tell the court the whole story."

Special prosecutor Eric Nichols said those matters were sufficiently covered in previous hearings and argued the defense didn't reach a threshold for showing that more testimony on the matters were necessary.

The admissibility of evidence from Jeffs' arrest in Nevada in 2006, however, will be considered. Nichols said the prosecution might, in the guilt-innocence phase, use audio recordings found in the Escalade in which Jeffs was traveling, and in the sentencing phase, disguises found in the vehicle.

Deric Walpole, Jeffs' lead defense attorney, had a motion for continuance denied and said he would be forced to enter in as "not ready," if going to opening statements today.

The attorneys also discussed the defense gaining access to DNA evidence held by the state.

DNA evidence has been used to show that the FLDS members who have gone to trial because of the raid fathered children by the girls they sexually assaulted.

The prosecution has refused to give details about their case and what evidence will be used in argument.

Udashen has also argued for the suppression of evidence before the Texas 3rd Court of Appeals during the appeal for FLDS member Michael Emack, who is serving a seven-year sentence for sexual assault of a child.

The appellate court has not yet issued a decision.

"It's an issue that, if Mr. Jeffs is convicted, will be taken up on appeal," Udashen said.

He said the case could make it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A jury has been selected but not sworn in, so that the case is mostly ready to begin today, Walther said.